First
by SuavePanda
Summary: in the end they'll always find each other. (piper/leo, piper/jason)


**This is Piper/Leo.**

**I wrote this as a personal challenge (I don't usually ship Pipeo), and I think I might have converted myself to this ship. Not sure yet, but it's a definite possibility.**

* * *

Not too long ago, there was a confused girl.

Confused Girl lived alone with her father, as her mother was gone. Yet the two of them were never truly alone, for father was Famous Father and had many people to care for and instruct him and his daughter. Confused Girl often wished he didn't have quite so many people. She sometimes felt as if Famous Father forgot he had a daughter, and this saddened her.

After years of living beside her father (though not quite living _with_ him), Confused Girl asked a man for a present and got one. But the giver of the present later was angry at Confused Girl, saying she had stolen the present, and Famous Father believed the giver over the daughter. Famous Father sighed, shook his head, and sent Confused Girl to a school for knotted people, where the school promised it would straighten all the knots out.

Confused Girl did not like the school. No one was nice, and she had no friends—except for Cloud Boy. Cloud Boy could always make Confused Girl laugh, even on the bad days. He was funny and kind and he held her hand on escalators (for Confused Girl was deathly afraid of escalators). And beneath his shining exterior, Confused Girl discovered a little child who reached for her with both arms stretched wide. Cloud Boy and Confused Girl pushed through the tough parts together.

If Confused Girl was honest with herself, Cloud Boy wasn't just a friend to her. In fact, Cloud Boy was slowly and steadily becoming Confused Girl's everything. For a little while, this troubled her deeply, and she became even more confused than she already was. Fortunately, it was only a few days later that Cloud Boy confessed that Confused Girl wasn't just a friend to him, either.

"Really?" asked Confused Girl.

"Really," confirmed Cloud Boy, and touched his lips to hers.

Confused Girl found kissing Cloud Boy to be quite pleasant. She told him so, and he laughed. Making Cloud Boy laugh inspired in Confused Girl a pride unlike any other. She began to feel a little less confused.

Things were uncertain for a day or two, but it quickly became clear that Cloud Boy heartily intended to be Cloud Boyfriend. Confused Girl had no problem whatsoever with this, and once again was pleased to be treated to a kiss.

Time continued on. Cloud Boy and Confused Girl were inseparable.

Sometimes they held hands. When she kissed his cheek he blushed. Weeks passed, and soon months did, too.

Confused Girl was no longer confused. With Cloud Boy, she became Bright Girl.

Everything was good.

* * *

Cloud Boy snuck into the girls' dormitory to play cards with Bright Girl one night. They played 21, and, as always, Bright Girl won.

They shook hands and held the gesture a bit too long. He took a breath and told her he loved her, and she told him she loved him, too.

His smile, soft as it was, still lit up the room. It lit up Bright Girl, too.

"You have no idea how amazing it is to hear you say that," said Cloud Boy.

"I think I might have some idea," she said, and pulled him close.

(He knew all the right ways to kiss her).

After a while, they said goodnight.

"You should get some sleep," advised Cloud Boy. "We have that field trip tomorrow."

Bright Girl groaned. "Don't remind me."

"At least we're paired." He stepped closer and kissed her. "I love you," he whispered against her ear, and then he walked out of the room, waving at her before the door swung silently shut.

Bright Girl fell asleep the happiest she'd ever been.

* * *

The next morning, Cloud Boy gave Bright Girl a secret smile, and her toes curled inside her shoes.

They stood in line for the bus together, and they sat together on the bus's cracked leather seats. It was cold, so he gave her his snow jacket.

The bus began to move. Bright Girl told Cloud Boy about the Batman dream she had last night. He told her that her dreams were weird, and she reminded him of the elephant dream he had in November. They decided that they both had weird dreams.

Cloud Boy pointed at a cloud. "It's a bear," he said.

Bright Girl shook her head. "It's obviously a cat."

They agreed to disagree.

And everything went dark.

* * *

In what might have been a moment,

Bright Girl returned to being Confused Girl.

Cloud Boy became Shadow Boy.

Lost Boy appeared.

* * *

Confused Girl watched Sun Boyfriend, amused. He was just waking up, perhaps at his cutest.

"Jason," she said gently, as that was Sun Boyfriend's name.

But when he opened his eyes, she saw no trace of Sun Boyfriend, or even of Sun Boy. She saw only Lost Boy.

In her uncertainty, Confused Girl turned to Shadow Boy. For an instant she feared for her sanity, because she could not fit Shadow Boy to her memory of him, either.

Then something clicked, and of course it was Shadow Boy. Sun Boy's (Lost Boy's?) best friend, and hers, too. Of course.

The following hours were a whirlwind. What was a demigod? Where was her boyfriend? Who was Lost Boy?

Confused Girl knew some of her memories of weren't real (and why couldn't she remember where she got her snow jacket, or why it mattered so much to her?), and she knew she might not get her true experiences back. She also knew Lost Boy wasn't the Sun Boy she remembered, but she still found herself drawn to him.

"It's because of the fake memories," explained everyone. Confused Girl wasn't sure what to think.

She liked Sun Boy, but did she like Lost Boy? And Shadow Boy…Shadow Boy was difficult to wrap her mind around.

Then the three of them went on a quest (Confused Girl did not really know what going on a quest meant). They needed to save Famous Father and a goddess, so they did.

Upon the trio's return to camp, they were given a hero's welcome. Confused Girl didn't feel hollow, but she felt full of the wrong things.

Though she didn't know it yet, she was more confused than ever.

Confused Girl had already fallen for Lost Boy, and on the basketball court he fell for her. For some reason, his affection left a bitter taste in her mouth.

It didn't take too long before hand holding and blushes and nervous smiles invaded. Still Confused Girl was incomplete, and still she did not know why.

One week later, while Lost Boy and Confused Girl were swimming in the lake late at night, he regained his last missing memories. He kissed her for the first time, and then Confused Girl regained all of hers.

Lost Boy's lips left hers. "You okay?"

She blinked.

She ran.

Out of the water, over the beach, past the arena, by the cabins, into the forest, though the trees, around Zeus's Fist, toward the limestone cliff, up to the enormous door, and through Bunker Nine to the one workstation with a light on.

Confused Girl was barefoot, and her feet were bleeding from running over rocks. She was wearing all her clothes and they were sopping wet from lake water. She was wild, and she paused.

"Leo?"

Hopeful, desperate, tender.

"Hey." He looked up, and he was Shadow Boy. "Whoa! What happened to you?"

Her heart sank.

"Nothing. Just checking in." Confused Girl walked toward the door, hands shoved deep in her pockets. "See you tomorrow."

She stepped over a wrench, wringing out her dripping hair, and it came.

"_Piper_."

She turned and Cloud Boy was already moving, scrambling towards her through the clutter. Bright Girl met Cloud Boy halfway and they crashed together in the midst of a pile of scrap metal, her mouth finding his the way it had hundreds of times before. He clutched at her, hands grasping at her back, lips sliding over her own, and his murmured stream of _love you love you love_ you sent chills down her spine. She could feel his heartbeat, and it was as fast as her own.

He broke away to trail kisses along her jaw and she sighed into him, fingers woven into his hair. "I thought you didn't remember."

He leaned his forehead against hers. "I didn't. But you started to leave, and I just…I just was positive you couldn't. And then I _knew_ you."

"I love you," she said, and she meant it more than anything she had ever said.

"And I love you." He shuddered against her. "Gods. I love you so much. I'm never letting you go again."

She tried to think of something to say, settled on, "Does this mean you'll stop calling me Beauty Queen?" Then they were kissing again, his touch searing, and Bright Girl was full of all the right things.

He was back in her arms. Everything was good.

_end._

* * *

**I feel it's necessary for me to explain a few things. First, this is perhaps the furthest from my usual style I can write, so please excuse any awkwardness you find. Second, the perspective changed a bit too much for my liking, but oh well. And lastly, the names.**

**I think it's blatantly obvious who's who, but just to be sure, lost boy=Jason (I'm so original), cloud/shadow boy=Leo, and confused/bright girl=Piper.**

**To explain the names: Jason is lost, and a boy. Ergo lost boy. I named Piper's "memory" of Jason sun boy because she remembers him as this perfect star of a human being, one with little to no faults and one that outshines everything else. Leo is cloud boy because that's how I imagine his personality, as this free-spirited thing that goes where it wants and is generally content but can still have its bad days. He became shadow boy because he was basically a shadow of what he used to be (that isn't to say _less _than what he used to be, only different). Piper is confused girl because that's pretty much how she is—confused and looking for answers. Bright girl steps into the picture once Piper's found someone to open up to and to be herself with.**

**Besides all that, I hope you liked this (sorry to my Jasper followers :P)**


End file.
